Although 2019 is well underway, I have only written a couple posts in the past month. So, although a bit late, here are a few art stories from 2018 that I found interesting.

.

ABOVE: Maurizio Cattelan, America, gold sculpture

The Golden Bowl

Last fall, the White House asked the Guggenheim Museum if it could borrow Vincent van Gogh’s 1888 painting ‘Landscape with Snow’ to display in the living area of the President and First Lady. Nancy Spector, the deputy director of the museum declined because the painting was heading the Guggenheim in Bilbao. She did however, offer up Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-karat gold toilet ‘America.’ The White House declined her offer.

Art and the Opioid Crisis

In March, famed photographer Nan Goldin – herself, a former addict – lead a protest against Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which is owned by some members of the Sackler family, and is the maker of OxyCotin. The first protest took place in the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. A second protest took place the following month at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. The protestors claimed that the Sackler’s are in part responsible for the opioid crisis in America.

It Pays to Take the Bus

In 2009, ‘Les Choristes,’ a pastel by Edgar Degas was stolen from a museum in the South of France. In February of 2018, it was found in the luggage department of a bus stopped at a gas station outside Paris. The artwork, which is worth an estimated $904,000, is set to go on display at the Musée d’Orsay sometime in 2019.